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Month: September 2018

Most people are aware of the importance of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting.

When are Muslims supposed to fast during this month? The Qur’an is clear on this: “…eat and drink until the white thread of dawn becomes distinct to you from the black thread [of night]. Then complete the fast until the sunset.” (Qur’an 2:187)

It is obvious from this verse that you should actually be able to observe the illuminating effect of the sun rising before beginning the fast. Sahih Bukhari confirms this by having Muhammad say that the threads refer to: ‘…the blackness of the night and the whiteness of the day.’ (Sahih Bukhari 35:1817) In other words Allah commands you to eat when it is dark and fast while it is light.

Let’s unpack the implications of this verse for a moment:
• Muslims believe that Islam is God’s final revelation for the entire earth and you should therefore be able to practice it anywhere on the planet
• Because the Muslim year is shorter than the universal calendar Ramadan can occur in all seasons
• There are places north of the Arctic circle (inhabited in Muhammad’s time and in the present) where it is dark for 24 hours during winter and light for 24 hours during summer.

All of this leaves Muslims with two rather uncomfortable options:
1. The Qur’an was written by someone who had no idea of the existence of the ‘midnight sun’, or
2. Almighty, All-Knowing Allah wants his followers in the Arctic to die of starvation in summer and not keep the fast in winter.

Whatever response Muslims give to the above options the fact remains that the supposed ‘eternal Quran’ contains a command that is impossible to follow on all of the planet!

In 2015, it was breathlessly announced by the media that the oldest copy yet of the Qur’an had been discovered in Birmingham, England. Media reports assured readers that the text could have belonged to one of the companions of the prophet himself as initial Carbon 14 dating indicated that it dates from 650’s CE. If that is all you heard about the so-called ‘Birmingham Folios’ you would assume that they provide powerful confirmation of the traditional Islamic account of Qur’anic origins. Things are, however, not nearly as simple as this.

Most readers will be familiar with the use of Carbon 14 dating (this is where the deterioration in a certain type of carbon molecule is measured in order ascertain the age of an object containing carbon). While this is sometimes used in textual dating, it can typically not be used to give a definitive reading on when a text was produced. The reason for this is certainly applicable to ancient Qur’anic manuscripts. Many of these manuscripts (and this includes the Birmingham Folios) were written on animal skins. This means that a manuscript may have been written on animal skin that belonged to an animal that was killed decades before ink was first applied to its leather. This was a widespread practice as skins were precious and often scraped and re-used multiple times. Unless a way can be found to reliably test the age of the ink (this is very hard to do as it has obviously seeped into the writing surface), there will always be questions about the Carbon 14 dates assigned to documents based on animal skin.

To make matters even more complex, some laboratories which ran follow-up tests on the folios really threw the cat among the pigeons by claiming that the text predates the time of Muhammad. This could, of course, be due to the ‘dating ink vs. dating the writing surface’ problem described above, but it does show the problems associated with relying solely on Carbon 14 dating in the case of ancient documents. Be that as it may, an early date (i.e. pre-Muhammad) would be fatal to the entire Islamic theological edifice as it will point to parts of the Qur’an being around before supposedly being ‘revealed’ to Muhammad.

As it turns out, this is exactly the area where the discovery of Birmingham Folios, received with such joy in the Muslim world, could be yet another nail in the coffin of the traditional Islamic understanding of how their holy book came into being. To see why this is the case, we must turn from the uncertain world of Carbon 14 dating to analyzing the text itself. As the name indicates the Birmingham Folios contain only a few pages (i.e. folios) from what is believed to be the Qur’an. They are, therefore, nowhere near to being a complete Qur’anic manuscript. The first thing to note is that the text on these pages do not align perfectly with the Qur’an currently in use by Muslims. It is orthographically different, especially in the fact that it leaves out the Arabic letter ‘alif’. Its verse divisions are also substantially different from the Cairo 1924 text in use today.

When one takes a closer look at the passages that appear on the folios, a rather startling fact emerges: the folios contain material that is quite obviously derived from earlier sources. The Birmingham Folios contain surahs 18:17-31 and 19:91-20:40. The verses from chapter 18 tell a story about some youths who fell asleep in a cave because they were being persecuted for their faith. They are preserved by God and wake up after many years to changed circumstances. This is a straight plagiarization of the Orthodox folk tale known as the ‘Seven Sleepers of Ephesus’. Chapter 19:98 is strongly related to the Proto-Evangelium of James and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. The section from Sura 20 is a retelling of the Biblical story of Moses. As Joseph Hoffman says: “These are some of the most obviously derivative sections of the entire Qur’an – stories which the Qur’an cannibalizes without attribution, increasing the likelihood that what we may have is not the Qur’an at all but fragments of stories that were eventually incorporated into the Qur’an at a later period.”

In other words, far from confirming the Muslim understanding of the early history of the Qur’an, the Birmingham Folios does the exact opposite. It instead confirms that whoever compiled the Qur’an made extensive use of pre-existing materials. Thus, forcefully challenging the pious idea that it was transmitted fully formed into the mind of Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel himself. As Wesley Huff says: “…the Birmingham Qur’an remains problematic for many believing Muslims as it challenges the Qur’anic assertions of being perfect, preserved, and unchanged. Even if the dating proves to be completely wrong, the find would still highlight the reality of textual variants that, according to Islamic literature, simply should not be there. It would point very concretely to there never being one preserved or complete text of the Qur’an throughout its history.”

The treatment of the aftermath of Islamic terror attacks are so entirely predictable by now that the only conclusion that we can reach is that the world’s media organizations are hell-bent on covering for the ‘Religion of Peace’.

I doubt whether a document like the one below actually exists, but it might as well, since most journalists are singing from exactly the same hymn-sheet and the key is denial of reality!

Memo to all Mainstream Media Journalists

Whenever an atrocity is committed by someone claiming to be inspired by the teachings of the Qur’an the following steps should immediately be taken to avoid awkward questions about the ‘Religion of Peace’:

• Interview friends of the perpetrator. Have them say how ‘totally shocked’ they are that such a nice guy could do such a thing (the implication being that he must have ‘snapped’)
• Interview worshippers at his mosque. Have them say that he attended irregularly and ‘drifted away’ eventually (in other words ‘He could never have learned that stuff here’)
• If the perpetrator had a troubled background (drugs, alcohol etc.) before turning to Islam make sure that it is emphasized.
• Insist that the perpetrator is mentally deranged and/or a ‘lone wolf’
• Insist that every interviewee or panellist talking about the attack repeat some version of ‘This has nothing to do with the peaceful teachings of Islam’ (It does not matter if they do not have the foggiest idea of what Islam actually teaches as long as the mantra is drilled into the minds of the public)
• Do not broadcast any appeals to the Qur’an or the example of Muhammad made by the perpetrator to justify his/her actions. If this is unavoidable constantly point out that he/she ‘Misunderstands Islam’
• Deflect attention from the incident (and assist the Muslim community in playing the victim card) by warning of a ‘backlash’. Feel free to do this even while the incident is playing out.
• Start, or strongly support, a ‘feel good hashtag’ (e.g. #Illridewithyou or #JeSuisCharlie) so that people can engage in pointless social media activism instead of analyzing the root causes of the attack

Muslim apologists often proudly claim that Islam liberated women from the terrible conditions they lived in before the coming of Muhammad. Yet, it is probably fair to ask what exactly this ‘liberation’ means if Islam condemns women to hell simply for being women.

Allow me to explain. According to the most revered collection of ahadith (traditions) the ‘prophet’ Muhammad once passed by a group of women. He told them: “O women! Give alms, as I have seen that the majority of the dwellers of Hell-fire were you (women).” They asked, “Why is it so, O Allah’s Apostle?” He replied, “You curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you. A cautious sensible man could be led astray by some of you.” The women asked, “O Allah’s Apostle! What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?” He said, “Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man? “They replied in the affirmative. He said, “This is the deficiency in her intelligence.Isn’t it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?” The women replied in the affirmative. He said, “This is the deficiency in her religion.” (Sahih Bukhari 1:6:301)

So here we see Muhammad not only cheerfully consigning the majority of women to hell but doing so based on a staggeringly misogynistic claim. You see, women have periods which in Islam means they cannot pray as often as men (as they are supposedly ritually unclean during menstruation). Fewer prayers means less merit in the eyes of Allah. Because of this their religion is ‘deficient’ and many are condemned to hell. Oh, and they are ‘deficient in intelligence’ as well!

Are we to understand that Allah (supposedly the ‘Compassionate and Merciful’) created women to have periods and bear children and then metes out terrible eternal punishment for being who they were created to be?